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to an arachnid. It was dancing around Jak, juking left and darting right.
    Then it screeched, “You stay away from my sister!”
    It threw itself on its hands, flung its long supple legs in the air, and kicked Jak square in the snow-white face. The albino sat right down. Ryan thought it was more of surprise than because he’d been knocked on his butt.
    Nuke this, Ryan thought. He snapped up to his feet.
    To find himself eye to snout with the lizard man.
    He punched the creature hard in the columnar throat. Usually that was a kill-shot, dooming the target to slow strangling death from a collapsed trachea. This was like hitting a steel pipe.
    The lizard man smiled wider. “You don’t get it, do you? Give it up.”
    Ryan smiled. Then he kneed the monster in the balls.
    Or tried to. The lizard man pivoted his hips, fouling the blow with the great muscle of his right thigh. He knew a thing or two about fighting.
    The lizard mutie slammed both palms into Ryan’s chest and sent him flying back.
    * * *
    S O THIS DUDE in a top hat and a coat with crazy mustachios just like Snidely Whiplash comes up to me in the dark, Mildred thought.
    That happened. Plus he fixed her with a burning gaze, raised both hands in a silent-movie spooky gesture, and intoned, “Look into my eyes, dear lady!”
    She punched him in the face instead.
    He reeled back in surprise. Mildred took quick stock of her friends. J.B. was sparring with an enormous fat woman. She looked as if she could crush him simply by falling on him. Mildred wasn’t worried. J.B. was a smart fighter.
    Krysty was wrestling with a balding man in tights. It didn’t look like near a fair fight, either: perfectly proportioned though she was, the tall redhead looked as if she was twice his size, and she was strong for a woman to boot. Doc was flourishing his ebony cane in the fur-covered face of some kind of beast-man mutie. The creature was powerfully built and had pointy ears on the top of his head.
    What have we gotten ourselves into? Mildred wondered. Oh. Right. A traveling mutie show.
    She raised her fists and closed in on her assailant. The man looked to be middle-aged and none too robust. She figured she didn’t need a blaster to take him.
    Movement caught her eye. Fearing a blindside assault, she glanced around to see Ryan fly through the air and slam right into the obese woman confronting J.B. Ryan literally bounced off her and landed on the ground in a heap. The woman turned on him triumphantly as J.B. nipped out of sight around her own bulk.
    Mildred turned her attention back to the man in the ludicrous top hat. He flung an arm at her. Powder gusted into her face.
    Poison! she thought in horror. She tried not to hold her breath.
    But it was too late. She’d already gotten a noseful.
    And promptly erupted into convulsive sneezes.
    * * *
    R YAN LAY ON the ground struggling to catch his breath. He didn’t have any cracked ribs, he thought. But he didn’t feel good.
    He saw Krysty putting a wiry little guy in a hammerlock, then she yelped, and the man sprang lithely away from her.
    Ryan came flying up off the ground to race to Krysty’s aid. He feared the man had stabbed her with a knife.
    He was propelled forward by a belly-bump from the huge fat woman the lizard man had tossed him into.
    This is going fifteen kinds of out of control, he thought, on his back on the ground again.
    He saw something spin end for end out of the night and knock Doc’s swordstick whirling end over end from his hand with a clatter.
    “A bowling pin? By the Three Kennedys!”
    He reached inside his frock coat. “I fear you leave me no choice—”
    Something flickered in dim starlight. There was a thunk, then a knife pinned the sleeve of Doc’s coat to the painted side of the wag.
    “Right,” Ryan grumbled. “That’s it.”
    He saw Krysty flipped over the skinny guy’s shoulder to land flat on her back. He was already reaching for the butt of his P-226 in its shoulder holster.
    He heard a